Our latest outburst here evoked some valuable opinions from our esteemed visitors.

In response to this post came this response from Ed of MonkeyWatch:

Until the adoption of the guillotine, beheading was generally reserved for nobles. As I so often find myself thinking, hanging's a more apt solution.

Shooting. We are Americans, we invented the gun culture.

After reading this post, I think I love you! No seriously. Not in the man-woman-kind of love. In the FINALLY SOMEBODY HAD THE GUTS TO SAY WHAT I THINK AND FEEL kind of love. The love of a kindred spirit for another. Like minded people who love their country and don't want to see it go the way of Britain et al.

Can you imagine what the left would say if we even MENTIONED these ideas?

I said just yesterday in a post at Right Truth that the USA is allowing mosques to pop up on every street corner, with all that goes with them ... their own schools, their own laws, their own dress, not wanting the US government to be in control of them, getting special treatment from the White House because they are 'misunderstood members of the religion of peace'....

We better wake up before it's too late. Every day I post on another group of terrorists in the New York area. That place is just breeding them.

Florida is also an outpost for terror growth.

I'm not racist, or out to get any particular group that is reasonable. Christians and Jews believe in love, love they neighbor as thy self, do unto others as you would have them to unto you ... Muslims are NOT that way. They think cutting out someone's eyes, tongue, penis, head, and butchering them like ground meat is reasonable and acceptable.

People like that do not belong in the free world or the United States. They hate us. They have hated us from the time of the Crusades and before. They can't build a bridge and get over it.

They are jealous of us and our technology and growth and prosperity, but they won't try to grow and develop themselves.

One Muslim on my site said something like this:

"If a poor family is sitting in one house, hungry and in need, and their is a rich family sitting in their big house with an abundance, it is only right for the poor to go take what the rich have."

Meaning, it is OK for the stone-aged Muslims to come into OUR house. I have them make these stupid comments all the time.

I begged them to say one kind word about our two soldiers that were butchered. Know what they said?????

They deserved it for all the Muslims around the world we are killing. And these particular Muslims who said this live in NEW YORK CITY.

I won't put words in my fellow bloggers' mouths. I'll just say this: Islam is incompatible with American freedom. You can't have both in the same society. Americans have to understand Islam and what it means, so they can rule it out of order.

Posted by John Climacus at 02:28 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Glad to see I'm not the only one with a temper:

Did The Denver Post go too far in publishing a letter to the editor today that advocates the beheading of editors, commentators, and politicians who have criticized the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay?

Posted by John Climacus at 04:23 | Permalink | Comments (3)

That previous post may be been a bit on the harsh side. The odd thing is I can write a post like straight through, off the top of my head, in not much more time than it takes to read it; whereas usually it takes me forever to write, with ideas going in all directions. There must be some direct relationship between an intense emotional state, clarity of vision and clarity of purpose, where the combination of the three yields extraordinary effectiveness though not necessarily towards rational ends.

I do believe orthodox Islam is fundamentally incompatible with Western civilization. Americans need to be made aware of this fact and be unafraid to state it plainly, and Muslims need to be shown a superior alternative.

Whether speaking of the "light" of Christianity or classic Western liberalism, too often we are guilty of hiding ours under a basket and then complaining when the world fails to see it.

Posted by John Climacus at 06:36 | Permalink

Sometimes the monstrous ironies of the world set me to thinking.

For instance, weighing stories like this one:

Friends and family are rallying around the seven Marines and a Navy medic charged with killing an Iraqi civilian, setting up Web sites to raise money and draw attention to what they claim is an unfair prosecution.

The troops are charged with premeditated murder and could face the death penalty if convicted. Supporters are scrambling to raise tens of thousands of dollars to pay defense attorneys.

Caldwell declined to describe the condition of the soldiers' bodies, saying it would be "inappropriate until I know what the families were told." He said it was clear that the soldiers had died of wounds suffered in captivity, rather than at the site of the attack on the checkpoint, but that the cause of death could not be immediately determined.

According to residents of Yusufiya and a relative of one of the victims, the soldiers were beheaded. An Iraqi official said they had been brutally tortured before their death, but provided no further details.

And more...:

"We announce the good news to our Islamic nation that we executed God's will and slaughtered the two crusader animals we had in captivity," said the claim, reportedly from the Mujahedeen Shura Council, a group linked to al Qaeda.

Seven people were arrested Thursday in connection with the early stages of a plot to attack Chicago's Sears Tower and other buildings in the U.S., including the FBI office here, a federal law enforcement official said.

As part of the raids related to the arrests, FBI agents swarmed a warehouse in Miami's Liberty City area, using a blowtorch to take off a metal door. One neighbor said the suspects had been sleeping in the warehouse while running what seemed to be a "military boot camp."

The men slept in the warehouse, said Tashawn Rose, 29. "They would come out late at night and exercise. It seemed like a military boot camp that they were working on there. They would come out and stand guard."

She talked to one of the men about a month ago: "They seemed brainwashed. They said they had given their lives to Allah."

The irony makes me wonder about several things:

A) Would it not be wise to ensure that Islamic culture never gains a foothold in the United States? The culture is highly problematic because at its root is a religion based on a book which is depraved.

[2.191] And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers.

The founder of the religion set quite an example as well. Mohammed accomplished many good deeds in terms of establishing social order in Arabia, and instituting a unifying religious system in a culture that was historically rife with conflict, but he also committed - and justified - murder, kidnapping and rape. This is the founder, mind you. A majority or plurality of Muslims at any given time might be "peaceful," but to call Islam a religion of peace is hogwash.

Is it reasonable, then, to suggest we don't want a single solitary trace of it in our country? I think so.

To begin with, a national referendum should be held to allow American citizens to vote on Amendment to the U.S. Constitution number 28:

1. After one year from the ratification of this article the practice or promotion of the ideology known as Islam in the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof is hereby prohibited.

2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

Next, I suggest all Muslims in the U.S. be invited to self-deport. As we have established, a fine welcome awaits each of them in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Finally, I suggest every mosque and Muslim center in the U.S. be siezed immediately via eminent domain and ownership transferred to a local gourmet foods purveyor, specializing in all types of fine comestibles, ranging from Italian prosciutto to Canadian bacon to an international array of wine and beer to a full range of kosher products, which will yield far greater tax revenue for the municipality. If the building is outside of town or unpromising for retail, turn it into a dog shelter or a strip club (with 72 dancers, natch).

B) What does it take for Americans to get mad? I mean, really mad as opposed to incidentally annoyed: angry with a clear, persistent goal in mind. Our most immediate enemies are attempting to impose a retrograde society. If America is still a shining city on the hill, our enemies are trying to exploit our passivity and inertia, and fertilize the weeds which grow up from within the cracks. They want a jungle to overtake our city. Will we let that happen, or will we fight back angrily, irrationally, as though our families' lives are at stake?

There are a few hundred million of us. Are we willing to fight to keep this city or are we content to hide within our homes and watch television while the jungle encroaches?

C) On the question of the way our military forces are allowed to operate and our philosophy of war, I wonder if we even have the concept that war is war. We haven't been around as a nation very long in the grand scheme of history, and while our rules have earned innumerable genuflects for the past century or two, has it been established that they work in all cases? Is there a point where you have to say: It doesn't matter if we're "better" than them, because we still have to win.

After watching the early portions of the Iraq war and seeing our troops killed because the rules of engagement favored the irregulars on the other side who were perfectly willing to pose as civilians or hide amongst civilians, and then the instances such as Fallujah where the goons also seemed to have the upper hand, I got to thinking: Can't this 'hearts and minds' business be taken too far?

That's about how I'm thinking today. I don't care if these pathetic, imbecilic, dark-ages culture, fourth-world mutants get a fair shot at self-government. I have never been clear on the fact that they even deserve or can handle self-government. My initial expectation was, the U.S. would take out Saddam and steamroll his regime, then set up a good dictator (for us) who would keep everything under control and allow us to maintain a massive forward base to keep killing Muslim terrorists and dropping huge amounts of ordinance on countries that shelter them.

The democracy prospect? Sure, leave that door open. But the war is about U.S. security, not opening the gates of all the cages and turning the zoo grounds into a major cluster-fuck.

Any critique of U.S. military tactics must acknowledge that the U.S. military is under civilian control and, like all people, civilians can be idiots. In fact, Americans as a rule can be totally blithe idiots because we have it so good. So when I criticize how military operations are conducted, please bear in mind I am criticizing all of us, because we as citizens ultimately control who calls the shots and which shots get called. And I realize: Our ability to respond to threats is limited by the will of the citizenry. Countries without such limits seem to have an advantage.

So when I see videos of people getting their heads sawed off, or read about elderly, female aid workers found disembowled, or read about soldiers having their eyes gouged out and genitals cut off and stuffed in their own mouths before being beheaded, I often wonder: What Would The Fucking Chinese Do?

I'll admit, I don't know that much about the Chinese, which is why I call them the "fucking Chinese," because they are kind of scary and exotic, and they strike me as very effective. But I have the sense they are ruthless. I picture China's leadership as the moral equivalent of a 1970's-era motorcycle gang like the Hells Angels or the Outlaws with a big-ass, rich modern state as their home turf. Or like Genghis Khan and his accompanying hordes with all the resources of U.S. Naval Base Guam.

The beauty of the Chinese is they don't just let certain countries fight certain battles for them: They let ALL the other countries fight ALL the battles. In business parlance, the Chinese reinvest. While I don't know much about how the Chinese would handle a situation such as Iraq, I can speculate.

I think they'd be really, really brutal. I think the answer to What Would The Fucking Chinese Do is, they would rain down hell until the problem went away.

They harvest body parts from prisoners, for god's sake. My guess is, if the Chinese were faced with a situation like the U.S. now has in Baghdad, they would employ the Daisy Cutter Your Block tactic. When someone kills a Chinese soldier, the Chinese disintegrate a block. If attacks continue, they evaporate another block. Keep bombing, and eventually the locals will have a strong desire to root out the bad guys from within their midst.

Cultures that mutilate people in the name of religion don't get the protections provided by the Geneva Convention. They get clobbered. They get bombed from above and raided from below. And they get pain widely distributed. The U.S. should be tripling the number of troops in Itaq, breaking down doors, and vaporizing trouble spots. The Iraqi people would quickly catch on and kill the terrorists themselves.

I think wars are fought to win, not for democracy for the locals. The Chinese would likely be on board with that.

Posted by John Climacus at 03:54 | Permalink | Comments (4)

No matter how unbelievably dumb the national GOP can be - and I'll be the first to say, their potential is limitless - the Democrats will ALWAYS be hamstrung by the Mutant Caucus which comprises much of the party's public face.

Just more evidence that a bona fide Third Party has an opening the size of the Grand Canyon.

Posted by John Climacus at 01:34 | Permalink

I haven't done this in a while, because it's kind of like linking to Glenn Reynolds or putting a Coke decal on your lawnmower, but I have to revisit the old days and link to Clublife just one more time:

Sometimes I took the subway, but then I moved and started taking the Long Island Railroad. You take the Long Island Railroad from Penn Station, which is a place that sucks. At 4:30 in the morning at Penn Station, every drunk from every bar and club in Manhattan is waiting to take the train home to Long Island. In Penn Station, they shout, they fight and they throw up. They're socially unacceptable. They made me very tired, so I decided it was time to start driving to work. This meant I'd be putting a lot of wear on my car, and spending money on gas, but it beat sitting around Penn Station with a bunch of drunken Guidos. People who make too much noise in public places are called "cocksuckers."

Posted by John Climacus at 10:49 | Permalink

WOW! Iraq finally has turned into the quagmire liberals and the mainstream media have been warning us about for the past three years. A quagmire for them, that is.

To state a truism: For opponents of the war, good news is bad news:

Iraqi forces captured a high-ranking terrorist network commander during an early morning ground assault raid in Karbala, Iraq, today and coalition forces in eastern Baghdad stopped an alleged kidnapping June 13, military officials reported.

Iraqi army soldiers, assisted by coalition advisers, captured Sheik Aqeel in the Karbala raid. Aqeel commands a Karbala terrorist network and is wanted for assassinating Iraqi citizens and planning and ordering attacks against Iraqi and coalition forces, officials said. The terrorist network commander provides financial support to subordinate leaders and supplies them with improvised explosive devices.

US and Iraqi officials said large numbers of documents had been seized during the hunt for Zarqawi, giving key information about the militant group's net-work and the whereabouts of its leaders.

Mouwafak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, called it "the beginning of the end of al-Qaeda in Iraq". He said: "Now we have the upper hand. We feel that we know their locations, the names of their leaders, their whereabouts, their movements, through the documents we found during the last few days."

The documents seized included one from a computer found in an al-Qaeda hideout used by Zarqawi, apparently setting out al-Qaeda's future tactics and acknowledging it was losing not only the military battle but also the propaganda war.

The end of Zarqawi marked the beginning of al-Qaeda's end in Iraq:

...and I do believe the government has a golden opportunity to deal with al-Qeada and its allies as the death of Zarqawi left his organization and followers in a state of shock and huge suspicion that the network's lines have been infiltrated, and I feel that most of them are behaving clumsily out of fear from being already identified and located. Of course this will make their moves more noticeable and will eventually expose them, that's if they're not already exposed.

Moreover, the government is sending vague messages through the local media stating that some of the documents seized near Zarqawi included names of well known political figures and I think this kind of leaked information is choking the involved elements.

In fact some people here are suggesting a link between the arrest of the head of the city council in Kerbala and the information found in those documents building these speculations on the nature and timing of the arrest, some are expecting similar arrest to follow against even more important figures.

Al-Rubaie said a laptop, flashdrive and other documents were found in the debris after the airstrike that killed the al-Qaida in Iraq leader last week outside Baqouba, and more information has been uncovered in raids of other insurgent hideouts since then...

When asked how he could be sure the information was authentic, al-Rubaie said "there is nothing more authentic than finding a thumbdrive in his pocket."

Even though political support at home is creeping upwards, please don't get me wrong: Things appear to be getting better in a hurry in Iraq, which is basically the worst possible news for the Democratic party, but it's no time for a George W. Bush superiority dance.

UPDATE: On that latter point, he has pissed off the base before but sometimes you just have to say...damn!. "He is consistent" all right.

Posted by John Climacus at 10:17 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Here's the scene: We're in the kitchen doing the dishes about 9:00 tonight when the doorbell rings - a rare occurrence at our house at any hour. The puppy goes berserk; my wife says "Oh, it must be one of the neighbors returning one of our pie plates." (It's cherry-pie-givin' season). I go to the door.

Standing there are two clean-cut young guys, twenty-ish, one holding an American flag.

"Hello, sir," he says, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as you please. "We just want to give you this American flag."

I shoo the savage little screeching canine freak away from the doorway with my foot and step out onto the porch.

Knocking on my door at 9 on a weeknight, unless you are Ann Coulter, there's no quicker way to my heart than to wave an American flag in my face, so what normally would have been an annoying interruption in this instance had me mildly bemused.

"Wow, you're actually knocking on doors and giving away flags?"

"Sir, we also wanted just a moment of your time to show you something."

I notice there is a van idling in the street.

"Oh, I see. What are you selling?"

"Sir, it's a type of cleaning product, and it will only take a second."

"What, you mean like Amway or Quixtar?"

"Oh, you're familiar with those?" He smiles. "No, this is something different and it will only take a moment of your time." He turns to run out to the van.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," I say, stopping him. "I don't think..."

He interrupts me and says in a more man-to-man tone: "Sir, we just need to do one more demonstration tonight so we can go home. He's new and I want him to..."

"Well, what is it you're selling?"

"It's a Kirby vacuum cleaner, sir, the best in the world..."

"You're selling vacuum cleaners door to door?"

"I swear, it won't take long, I'll be right back," and they both run out to the van.

They return with several boxes and I let them into the living room. The guy who so far has done all the talking says cheerfully, "I'm just going to set up Charles here and he's going to do the demonstration. He's new at this, only been doing it about two months, so please go easy on him." Then, with a conspiratorial wink, "You can put him to work - make him clean your house! Thank you so much, sir." He leaves.

I turn to Charles who is unpacking and assembling a multitude of parts. Charles says, "So are you familiar with the Kirby?"

"Um, I am familiar with the concept. You're going to vacuum stuff and show me how much dirt it picks up even in areas I think are pretty clean."

Charles is delighted. "Oh, so you know about this. Have you seen one of these before?"

"Yes, I sure have. Maybe not a Kirby..."

"Sir, let me ask you one thing: What type of vacuum cleaner do you own now?"

"A Dyson."

"Ok, ok. It cost what, about $500?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"Well tell me this: What would you think would be cost of the most expensive vacuum cleaner?"

"I guess $1000..."

"Well, this one is $1800."

I nod, impressed: "Wow, ok."

"There's a reason it costs $1800. It has a lifetime guarantee, not just one year like most of them. I was going to say, the most expensive vacuum cleaners are the cheap plastic ones you can buy..."

"Oh, because you have to replace them so often?"

"That's right. But now let me show you why the Kirby is really in a class all of its own."

He also told me the history of the company and a bunch of other stuff, but the meat and potatoes of the presentation is clearly the 'vacuum rodeo' drill, and man oh man does he put that machine through its paces.

He slips a white paper filter disk into the canister, vacuums a portion of carpet, takes out the filter caked half an inch high with dirt and dust, and sets it on the floor. Then in a continuous motion he takes another disk from the stack in his other hand, slips it in the canister, works over another section of carpet, and lays the dirt-piled disk on the floor. Switches attachment, then covers another section, then another, then another.

Then, the linoleum. The couch. The stairs.

We're now about a half hour into our little get together and he says: "Sir, if you don't let me demonstrate a single other thing this machine can do, I want you to see what I'm going to demonstrate next."

He starts to carry the Kirby toward the steps. "I just want you to let me demonstrate on a corner of a mattress..."

"Whoa, wait a minute, you mean go up to one of the beds? No, no that's not going to be very convenient for us..."

"But sir, you don't have any idea..."

"Yes, yes, I know, there's all kinds of bad stuff inside the mattresses. That's just not going to be doable right now." And I guide him back to the living room, beginning to feel annoyed.

Charles works another transformation on the Kirby to demonstrate another feature, and suddenly I realize I'm feeling REALLY annoyed. Then, I look around at the dust-caked disks sitting all over the carpet and up the steps and it dawns on me I'm on the brink of a major allergy attack.

I sneeze and Charles says, "Oh, do you have allergies?"

"Yes," I say, wiping my nose on my sleeve.

"Well what I was going to show you on the mattress is it pulls out this black dust, sort of a slimy dust, and what that is is the excrement of dust mites. The excrement of dust mites, and human skin. And that's what you're sleeping on. Most people are amazed. You know, 90 percent of the allergies and colds are actually caused by this dust mite excrement..."

Annoyance level now at def-con 28, I say, "Excuse me a second, Charles, I need to go get a tissue."

I go around to the bathroom, blow my nose a few times, stop at the closet to grab my camera, and go back into the living room.

In preparation for demonstrating the superiority of the Kirby filter paper - "developed by NASA" - Charles is stacking three of the "competitor" filter disks over one Kirby disk.

It turns out the dust goes through ALL THREE of the competitors' disks, but stops at the Kirby disk. Charles is about to do a reverse stack to show that the Kirby disk catches the dust and leaves the other three perfectly white.

"Charles, hold on a second, let me get a picture of this."

"Uh...ok."

Now he's telling me about the micron-size of dust particles the Kirby filter can catch; I think it's one, and a human hair is like 10, and none of the competitors can catch anything smaller than five. I notice there are still several pieces of equipment yet to be demonstrated. Just this talk of dust microns has got my nose now itching, and while I know a good 5 oz of cabernet would take that edge off, the cabernet is in the kitchen, a world away.

"Say, Charles, that's really impressive. Hold on, let me get another picture."

There is more, so much more. The Kirby can be a carpet cleaner, an air-blower, a paint sprayer; it can clean the ceiling and the top of the ceiling fan blades. It has a special type of roller and special design so it cleans the carpet without grinding dirt back into it. He wants me to bring out the Dyson so he can have me vacuum a portion of carpet with it, after which he would run over it with the Kirby to show me how much dirt the Dyson failed to pick up (he doesn't tell me this but I know the drill)...

And finally at the 50-minute mark I just have to say, "Charles, you do a GREAT job demonstrating and explaining the machine. But I'm not going to buy one."

Charles, of course, already knew that. He knew it at 9:01 pm right after he'd stepped into the house, because my bemused demeanor, incredulous questions about the fact that salesmen still walked around knocking on doors, and in fact everything I said made it obvious I had simply assented to the demonstration and nothing more.

He'd had to sort of run through the paces of each step of the dog and pony show, with clipped summaries of each section of narrative, just getting the key phrases in, listening to me interject with the obligatory "Wow!" or "That IS impressive" at the appropriate times, then moving on to the next step. Everything about the interchange between us said: Perfunctory.

As he packs up, I say, "Charles, this is a tough job. How did you end up doing it?"

He tells me he just graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in business, is waiting to hear from the Department of Justice about when he can start, and in the meantime enjoys selling vacuum cleaners.

"What I like about it is there is no limit to how much I can sell, no discrimination about who you can sell to. It doesn't matter if you're black or white or Hispanic, where you live, how much money you have: Everyone needs a vacuum cleaner, and everyone can benefit from a Kirby. I can go sell in Stafford at the $800,000 homes, and in Manassas at the $200,000 homes. And I know it's the best vacuum cleaner in the world. It's so easy to sell something when you believe in it."

"How many presentations do you do in a day?"

"Usually three, they usually take about an hour and a half each."

I say, "Well, it is hard work! I know some things about sales, and cold-calling door to door is one of the hardest kinds."

"Oh man, why do you say that?"

"I dunno, I guess maybe it's a personality thing. Maybe I'm not a people person."

"Oh," he says. "If you have an introvert personality..."

"Yeah, that's me all right."

"I used to be like that in high school."

The thought strikes me: I haven't changed much sociability-wise since high school, which is going on 27 years ago, and this kid is only four years out and he's door-knocking and running through futile presentations with a smile until 10:00 at night.

It reminded me of when I was waiting tables at a very fancy hotel, and some idiot customer would screw with me by changing the order or sending something back for some eccentric reason just to watch me squirm. The result for me has been: Today, you could drop a cow off the roof of the house next door, or tell me in a boardroom my ass is grass, and I would not even flinch. I've developed an almost inhuman degree of composure when I really need it.

Door knocking? Right up there.

"Charles, let me get another picture of you with the Kirby."

There's a tinge of nervousness in his laugh: "Man, are you going to use this in a poster or something?"

"Oh no," I say, my razor-sharp mind stirring to deliver the mother-of-all-perfect-responses. "I just like vacuum cleaners."

As he carries his boxes to the door he says, "Thank you for your time, sir."

"Thank you, Charles, and good luck with everything. You did a good job. This will all end up being good experience for you."

Posted by John Climacus at 01:34 | Permalink | Comments (5)

You'll probably never read a negative word about Ann Coulter written by me because, to be frank, I think she can do no wrong. I excuse every supposed rhetorical excess on the basis of a point she made in "How to Talk to a Liberal..." She said (to paraphrase) that you should never give an inch or "make nice" when debating a liberal because they will invariably eventually use everything you give them against you. Never pull a punch, and in fact always follow up with a SECOND punch. In the case of the four New Jersey widows - well, I haven't got to that part of the new book yet but I imagine they've done some things Ann finds despicable and therefore she goes after them with all howitzers a-blazin'.

Our esteemed reader PJ has a very different view, however, and the force of his argument makes me wonder if that old 'love is blind' maxim might just have some truth to it, with reference to my own case.

Conservatives Should Condemn Coulter

In Coulter’s most recent book she writes of the four New Jersey widows whose husbands were killed on 911.

"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much…" She says, "How do we know their husbands weren't going to divorce these harpies?"

After reading this, can conservatives continue to think of Coulter as a responsible spokesperson for conservative issues? It would seem that Coulter has finally put her foot in her mouth so far in she won’t be able to get it out again. In my view Coulter should be harshly condemned by all reasonable people (especially those of us from the right) for her over the top statements regarding the widows of our 911 victims. What could she have been thinking?

It would seem to me that Coulter has become one of these people spoiled by their own success - just a little too much money, fame and celebrity. For Coulter it is no longer all about principles and beliefs - it’s become all about “her” and her media image, and about thinking up new and totally outrageous things to say for the sole purpose of calling attention to "herself". As demonstrated by her recent statements, Coulter will say virtually anything to prove a point, or to sell a book. She has lost all sense of shame.

Coulter’s highly inflammatory and defamatory comments about the New Jersey 911 windows do nothing to enlighten the public discussion. Instead Coulter’s comments only serve to divide people into warring camps and to perpetuate the stereotypical image that all conservatives are uncaring zealots and extremists. If conservatives continue to embrace extremists like Coulter, perhaps the stereotype is valid.

People who write for a living need to be very watchful about the words they ultimately decide to commit to paper. The words we choose to use are extremely important. In all fairness, Coulter’s comments were not made in the heat of some verbal argument. If so, one might possibly forgive her. To the contrary, Coulter had ample opportunity to think about her words before ultimately deciding to include them in her new book and so did her publisher, and both Coulter and her publisher knew this book would be widely read and discussed. No doubt the plan was to sell the book via Coulter’s controversial comments, which is how she markets herself.

I think it is going to be very hard for Coulter to regain her past credibility after having made these incredibly stupid and hurtful statements about the New Jersey 911 widows. Conservatism must always be the party of reason, honor and restraint and this is why conservatives should part company with Coulter.

Posted by John Climacus at 04:13 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Koo koo ka choob, muthafuckah.

I'd like to see some new maxim along the lines of "whenever the Fox Breaking News audio tag plays, a Muslim jihadist is on his way to Hell." That would be nice.

In the meantime, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi is reportedly dead:

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Al Qaeda-linked militant who led a bloody campaign of suicide bombings, kidnappings and hostage beheadings in Iraq, has been killed in a U.S. air raid north of Baghdad, Iraq's prime minister said Thursday.

It will be real interesting to see how the mainstream media attempts to spin this as a problem for George W. Bush. I'm guessing it will be along the lines of how America has angered the Muslim world. "This will cause the insurgency to gather steam" and it will be "very worrying."

"It will have an impact on the jihadists and serve as a recruiting tool."

Mark my words, the international community is gnashing their teeth. They just lost a round.

UPDATE: Read Dan Darling.

UPDATE II: If you don't happen to be familiar with the Muslim terrorists' fan club here in the U.S., a good place to get acquainted is over at Daily Kos. Enjoy.

UIPDATE III: No good-news-from-Iraq story would be complete without a comment from the inimitable, likely insane, Congressman Murtha.

I hope the Bush administration will take this as a signal to start working with other countries diplomatically to try to reduce our presence as quickly as we can.

Posted by John Climacus at 04:39 | Permalink | Comments (4)

...at least as far as page 6, anyways. But I'm going to go ahead and vouch for the rest of it because I think the 'appeal to authority' argument is plenty enough justification in this instance.

Some background: I did not intend to buy the book now, and in fact as I was rushing through an airport today I had two perfectly respectable pieces of reading material which would have carried me through my air-miles quite sufficiently.

But I turned a corner into Dulles Airport's B-gate and walked smack into the Borders store with this as the front level display:

Now, I didn't need a book, because I've got a hundred books at home I should have already read, but if you put Ann Coulter's photo on a box of matzoh, even though I am not Jewish and I eat low-carb and I do not really like matzoh, I would buy that Ann Coulter Matzoh, just for the picture.

Therefore, I guess we can say I'm in the 'sympathetic' demographic for the purposes of Ann Coulter-related marketing campaigns. I can live with that.

So once we get beyond the photo of Ann on the front cover - which, when you think about it, there's really no hurry to do, because it's a flattering picture (is there any other kind?) and in our busy society how much beauty do we really take the time to appreciate, and, jeez, that's got to be a waist of like 22 inches and a bust of like.... - ok, sorry, THAT was straying from the report...

Once we get beyond the photo, as Donky Cons aptly noted some time back, this book is going to turn some heads. Or explode some heads, as the case may be.

Liberal doctrines are less scientifically provable than the story of Noah's ark, but their belief system is taught as fact in government schools, while the Biblical belief system is banned from government schools by law. As a matter of faith, liberals believe: Darwinism is a fact, people are born gay, child-molesters can be rehabilitated, recycling is a virtue, and chastity is not. If people are born gay, why hasn't Darwinism weeded out people who don't reproduce? (For that, we need a theory of survival of the most fabulous.)

The core of the Judeo-Christian tradition says that we are utterly and distinctly apart from other species. We have dominion over the plants and the animals on Earth. God gave it to us, it's ours - as stated succinctly in the book of Genesis. Liberals would sooner trust the stewardship of the Earth to Shetland ponies and dung beetles.

Ann Coulter is an American treasure. For purely intellectual reasons.

Much more on Ann from Donky Cons, here.

Posted by John Climacus at 02:10 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Those who know me well - and there are few - know that by day I'm a drone, by night a covert political operative, and after the wolves have ceased howling I'm a bleary-eyed blogger nose-deep in the fruit of the vine.

Lately, and I mean for months now, my artificial blogging persona has been constricted tremendously because of real actual shit I've been doing, if you'll pardon my French. You really would not believe it.

I'm talking propaganda manufactured and fine tuned right down to the letter kerning by me, printed and delivered door to door.

I'm talking audio recordings of events I'm not even supposed to be at, by virtue of the fact I can show up almost anywhere without anyone noticing because I am the most non-descript entity on this planet after pork bellies and sand.

I'm talking about the life you have when your quality free time is measured out in teaspoonfulls. And you must continually ask yourself: How shall I use this teaspoon: for good or for ill?

Posted by John Climacus at 03:40 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Lemuel Calhoun of the invaluable Hillbilly White Trash blog is hosting a poll to determine the official Hillbilly Motion Picture. Go here to read all about it and submit entries.

Posted by John Climacus at 12:53 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Reader PJ responds to the Fallaci interview post:

The Vine

In my backyard there is a type of vine, I’m not sure what it’s called. It’s a pretty sort of vine with bright yellow flowers. It’s a good groundcover. It has a nice odor; a pungent, sweet smell like some sort of exotic fruit. The bees and hummingbirds find it most appealing and are drawn to it.

My backyard slopes off into a steep canyon which leads into a natural refuge. It’s a wild place and being much too busy with my work, I’ve let this part of my yard grow wild except for the fruit trees I’ve planted there years ago.

The Vine just sort of moved into my yard. I didn’t plant it. It just appeared there by itself. I know now that it crept in from a neighbor’s yard. I didn’t even notice the encroachment. I wasn’t paying attention.

The Vine propagates itself by launching off little feelers across the ground. Some of the feelers are quite long, maybe ten feet or so. Once these feelers feel they have moved far enough, some intelligence within the plant tells them to root themselves into the soil, thus starting an entirely new plant, while still remaining connected to the mother plant. Through this ingenious proliferation method, over a period of a just a few years, The Vine has grown to encompass a great portion of my property. The roots of The Vine go very deep. They are sinuous and incredibly tough. I’ve tried pulling them out of the ground to no avail. I have cut off the tops of the new plants as they are rooting themselves. Despite this, in just a few weeks they are growing again as vigorous as before.

One day I happened to notice not only had The Vine begun to take over my property – it was also attempting to kill all the other plants and trees! Indeed, The Vine was killing the other plants and trees by strangling them to death with its twisting creepers. Creepers twisting and winding themselves around branches and limbs like ever tightening baling wire, simultaneously sucking the life from the plant and blocking out the sunlight. Once one creeper had established itself on a plant, it was quickly joined by other creepers who moved onto other parts of the tree or bush until the entire plant was engulfed.

Without defenses to combat The Vine, the trees and bushes could do nothing to stop it. They stood helpless against The Vine’s relentless and merciless onslaught. Many were beginning to wither and die. Seeing what was happening I was horrified.

It was clear to me what must be done. The Vine must be killed! The Vine was a soulless plant, or a plant with an evil soul. The Vine did not just want to live; it wanted to destroy all other life. The Vine was incapable of living in peace with it's neighbors. The Vine must be stopped, or it would take over all!

So I bought a chainsaw. The Saw and I were going to redeem my land!

Before using The Saw I had to free my lovely trees and bushes from the creepers with clippers. As I carefully freed each plant and tree I apologized to them for not having seen the danger sooner. Some were just barely holding on. Truly they had suffered greatly. I felt as if I was doing “holy” work, freeing my plants from the cruel, terrible and twisting creepers.

Then I started The Saw. There could be no compromise with The Vine. The Vine must be destroyed, or it would destroy all. The Vine had met its match with The Saw. The Saw did its work with ease slicing through the twisting, tenacious branches like soft butter. The Saw and I worked most of the day. My hair and clothes were covered with a fine, green, sweet sawdust. Happily, I cut out every part of The Vine. No branch or creeper was left untouched. To ensure The Vine would not return (which it would have done) I sprayed the stumps with vegetation killer. The Vine was dead.

The Vine is gone now. Peace and freedom have been restored to my land. Now all the trees, bushes and plants can breathe free. Now all can live harmoniously with their neighbors without fear of the twisting creepers. The bees and humingbirds still come each day as before. There is a spirit of rebirth in my yard now. The New brought forth from destruction. I will be watching should The Vine ever try to return. The Saw will be ready.

Fallaci says it all - no compromise with Islamic-Fascism.

“Islamism is the new Nazi-Fascism. With Nazi-Fascism, no compromise is possible. No hypocritical tolerance. And those who do not understand this simple reality are feeding the suicide of the West.”

There can be no compromise with Nazi’s, Fascists, and Fascist-Islam. To the Fascists compromise is weakness and conciliation. The Fascists will only regroup and re-propagate. Compromise is only possible with civilized people with a like mind and who embrace civilized values. There can be no middle ground with jackals. The Vine must be stopped or it will take over all.

With women like Fallaci and Ann Coulter - who needs the 101st Airborne!

Posted by John Climacus at 12:31 | Permalink | Comments (2)